Packers and Texans win on Wild Card Saturday

By Associated Press 6:37am, January 6, 2013

The NFL's second season got under way with Houston and Green Bay moving onto next weekend's divisional playoffs.

- Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers showed how dangerous they can be when they're at full strength.

The Packers overwhelmed the Minnesota Vikings 24-10 in an NFC wild-card game that was never really close.

John Kuhn scored two touchdowns. DuJuan Harris added another and Rodgers connected with an NFL playoff-record 10 receivers as he threw for 274 yards.

Defensively, the Packers finally managed to contain Adrian Peterson and were all over Vikings backup Joe Webb, pressed into service because of Christian Ponder's elbow injury.

Peterson was held to 99 yards. He had rushed for 199 and 210 in the first two games against the Packers.

Webb, who hadn't thrown a pass all season, was sacked three times and off target all night.

His only highlight was a 50-yard scoring pass to Michael Jenkins late in the fourth quarter.

Green Bay will be at San Francisco next Saturday.

Houston held off Cincinnati 19-13 in the first AFC wild-card round.

The Texans' victory was built on the rushing of Arian Foster and solid defense, and reversed a slide that saw them lose three of their last four regular-season games to lose home-field advantage in the AFC.

Foster gained 140 yards, becoming the first player with at least 100 yards rushing in his first three postseason games.

He scored on a 1-yard run and also had eight receptions.

"It only takes one week to turn things around in the NFL and we did that," said Foster, whose team lost to Minnesota and Indianapolis to slip to the AFC's third seed.

Cincinnati gained only 198 yards and had 12 first downs. Its touchdown came on Leon Hall's interception return.